Excerpt:

The researchers also examined a common factor in the collapse of societies with good governance: leaders who abandoned the society’s founding principles and ignored their roles as moral guides for their people.

What does that remind you of?

  • Abracadaniel [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    societies collapse after the marginal return on investment in societal complexity goes negative. not necessarily immediately after, there’s usually some desatbilizing incident that catalyzes the process once that point has been reached.

    I recommend The Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph Tainter

  • gramxi [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    Our big red boy Matt did a cushvlog series on a book called First Class Passengers on a Sinking Ship. It’s an examination on the interaction of elite politics and the decline of great powers since the Thirty Years’ War which I’d recommended for a more materialist analysis

  • GaveUp [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    Other way around

    Societies start to collapse -> leaders start exploiting their people harder to try and keep them disciplined and contain unrest